Airborne munitions of increasingly-smaller sizes are being equipped with electronics modules to provide precision guidance and other functionalities. When deployed aboard an airborne munition, and especially when deployed aboard a smaller airborne munition, such as a guided projectile, it is desirable for the electronics module to be relatively compact and lightweight. It is also desirable for the electronics module to operate reliably even when subjected to extreme forces resulting from, for example, projectile launch or projectile spin; e.g., an electronics module deployed within a gun-fired projectile may experience upwards of 20,000 g-forces during firing, and, during flight, may spin at a rotation rate approaching or exceeding 150 revolutions per second. Munition-deployed electronics modules commonly include a plurality of printed circuit boards (PCBs) arranged in a stacked configuration (referred to herein as the “PCB stack”) to accommodate the unique geometric shape of the munition shell, which may include successive cylindrical and conical sections of varying diameters. A number of support structures, such as a tray, a slide, a cage, and the like, are typically utilized to space the PCBs apart along the longitudinal axis of the munition and to provide structural support for the PCBs in the PCB stack. Electrical interconnections are typically formed between neighboring PCBs utilizing specialized connectors, such as miniaturized connectors or flex cables.
Although relatively rugged and compact, PCB stacks of the type described above are limited in certain respects. The support structures utilized to space neighboring PCBs in conventional PCB stacks increase the overall weight and cost of the airborne munition and reduce available space within the munition shell. As a further disadvantage, the specialized connectors utilized to interconnect neighboring PCBs in the PCB stack are also relatively costly to acquire. More importantly, the installation of such specialized connectors is generally not amenable to automated manufacturing processes and consequently incurs considerable manual labor costs during low or high volume fabrication. As a still further disadvantage, specialized connectors tend to occupy an undesirably large portion of the available surface area of PCBs that have been miniaturized for deployment aboard a projectile or other airborne munition.
Accordingly, it is desirable to provide an electronics module suitable for deployment onboard an airborne munition (e.g., a projectile) or other airborne object (e.g., a satellite) that is relatively compact, rugged, reliable, and amendable to fully automated manufacturing processes. Other desirable features and characteristics of the present invention will become apparent from the subsequent Detailed Description and the appended Claims, taken in conjunction with the accompanying Drawings and this Background.